Oropharyngeal airways are designed to provide an airway for patients who are unconscious or comatose and are unable to maintain an airway on their own because of an unintact gag reflex. An oropharyngeal airway is inserted into the patient's oropharynx and restrains the tongue from retracting and occluding the glottic opening.
The traditional procedure of endotracheal intubation is typically accomplished in an emergency setting by visualizing the glottic opening with the utilization of a laryngoscope, and then advancing an endotracheal tube through the glottic opening. In the emergency setting, obstacles such as vomitus, blood, or patient positioning can make visualization of the glottic opening extremely difficult if not impossible. Even when aggressive oropharyngeal suctioning is applied, visualization of the glottic opening often fails to be accomplished. If a patient's airway cannot be rapidly and effectively secured, the patient will become hypoxic, which results in rapid deterioration of the patient's health and often results in death.
Given the need for quick action and the difficulty, in some cases, of being able to visually detect the glottic opening of a patient, a number of devices have been developed that do not require visualization of the glottic opening. Such devices have existed for years, but still suffer from one or more drawbacks. For example, the tracheal guide disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,720,275 comprises a distal end in the form of a shovel-like tongue (25) and ears (18,33) positioned along opposite sides of a U-shaped passage (17). In order to operate correctly, the disclosed tracheal guide must be precisely positioned within a patient so that ears (18,33) extend into the piriform fossa (19,34) of the patient, the piriform fossa (19,34) being located in the vicinity of the glottic opening (39) as shown in FIGS. 1-4. In many emergency situations, such precise positioning is not practical given the state of the patient and the need to act quickly.
Further, once a tracheal guide is properly positioned, an endotracheal tube is inserted through the tracheal guide and guided into the trachea of the patient. Once the endotracheal tube is properly positioned, an air source is connected to the endotracheal tube so that air may be administered to the patient.
What is needed in the art is a simple airway device that is (1) capable of quickly aligning certain anatomical structures of a patient's airway so as to provide a guided pathway for an endotracheal tube to be inserted through the device and guided into the trachea of the patient, and (2) can be inserted into a patient without the need for precise positioning of device components/features. What is also needed in the art is a simple tube securing device that is capable of securing a portion of an endotracheal tube extending from a patient's mouth to prevent undesirable movement of the endotracheal tube extending from the patient's mouth.